Why computers hate Kendry Morales

We linked yesterday to 3 Days' comparison of Kendry Morales to former 1B-of-the-Future Jack Howell. Howell is generally considered a disappointment, but some statistical projection systems say Morales will come up well short of even Howell's statistics. Baseball Prospectus' system, PECOTA, forecasts an awful .253/.295/.389 line in 2009, with just 11 homers in 450 plate appearances. Why does PECOTA hate him so?

Projection systems are great on a macro-level, but for individual players there is always the possibility of blind spots, so let's look at it. PECOTA compares each modern player to the thousands of players who came before. After finding the most statistically similar hitters, the system then averages those comparable players together to estimate our subject's future. Here are the 20 players whose stats (major and minor leagues) though Age 25 were most simliar to Kendry Morales':

Kevin Grijak

Randall Simon

Carlos Rivera

Terry Tiffee

Jorge Toca

Guillermo Velasquez

Alejandro Freire

Pete Dalena

Rob Cosby

Hector Villanueva

Geronimo Gil

Olmedo Saenz

Julio Zuleta

Wiki Gonzalez

Carlos Mendez

Dan Lewis

Javier Cardona

Eddy Diaz

Jamie Dismuke

Ruben Mateo

Ah, the great Kevin Grijak. Who can forget how he tore through the league during his Age 26 season and -- right, that didn't happen. It's a pretty discouraging list that gives you a one in 20 chance of being as good as Olmedo Saenz.

So that's why PECOTA hates Kendry Morales -- his statistical comps suck. Except, this raises a question: Those guys are the most similar to Kendry Morales???

It's actually easy to see why PECOTA finds some similarities. Like Morales, almost all of these players rarely struck out, rarely walked and (especially at higher levels) had only average in-game power. They're primarily players with good batting averages and just OK on-base and slugging percentages. None of them ran well. Most of them failed to develop secondary hitting skills -- power or patience -- during their early 20s.

But none of them put up raw numbers in the minors anywhere near as good as Morales' numbers so far. Here are the career minor league averages for his comps, and for Morales:

Player

AVG

OBP

SLG

Average comp

0.283

0.341

0.442

Morales

0.337

0.393

0.546

...

What PECOTA knows is that Morales has spent most of his minor league career in extreme hitting environments. It adjusts his minor league numbers to Major League Equivalent numbers. Going from Salt Lake City (elevation: 4226), in the Pacific Coast League, to the majors strips Morales' numbers of most of their shine.

For instance, his .341/.376/.543 Salt Lake line of 2008 translates to .262/.297/.422 in the majors. The first line looks like a star; the second line doesn't deserve a starting job in the majors. Giving credibility to PECOTA's translations, Morales has hit a very similar .249/.302/.408 in 307 real major league at bats, which gives us more reason to be suspicious.

Do these translated stats overrate the difference between the Pacific Coast League and the American League? I went back to three random years: 2004, 2000 and 1996, and compared the Salt Lake City stats of future major leaguers to the numbers they would put up during their major league careers. (Salt Lake used to be the Twins' affiliate.) This is way unscientific, but just to get a sense:

Player

Year

SLC OPS

Major League OPS

Casey Kotchman

2004

0.981

0.749

Dallas McPherson

2004

1.050

0.756

Wil Nieves

2004

0.774

0.547

Doug Mientkiewicz

2000

0.930

0.765

Torii Hunter

2000

1.130

0.794

Casey Blake

2000

0.935

0.781

Todd Walker

1996

0.999

0.783

Matt Lawton

1996

0.860

0.785

Damian Miller

1996

0.752

0.740

The PCL: Where everyone's an MVP. Torii Hunter slugged .727 that year, 40 points higher than Babe Ruth slugged for his career. Next to some of those performances, Morales' .520, .486 and .543 slugging percentages in three years won't blow you away, especially for a first baseman.

So, that's what PECOTA knows. There are, of course, things it doesn't know. It doesn't know, for instance, that he hit .404/.450/.778 in the Dominican League this winter. It doesn't know that scouts still rave about him. (Even if after five years those raves have yet to be backed up by much product.)

It doesn't know that, according to Mike Scioscia, "this guy has worked as hard as anyone we've seen in the game." It doesn't know (or maybe it does -- PECOTA's input is proprietary) that Morales hit .364/.395/.597 in the second half, which might indicate he's turned a corner.

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